School Administrators

Gloria J. Vogt, a college administrator from Minnesota, has been appointed dean of the business division at Orange Coast College. As dean, Vogt will oversee eight different programs that offer 300 classes and enroll more than 5,000 students each semester, college officials said. Before coming to Orange County, Vogt held a variety of posts at junior colleges in Minnesota. Most recently, she was director of special projects at North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minn.

After more than three decades with the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, Ensign Intermediate School Principal Scott Paulsen is resigning. Paulsen is known for instituting a weekly forum at Ensign aimed at dispelling intolerance based on ethnic stereotypes. The program was so successful that it became a model for other schools in the area. Paulsen joined the district in 1962 as a teacher. Since then he has served as principal at Monte Vista, Andersen, California and TeWinkle schools.

The wife of school board member Robert W. Balen has resigned her teaching position because her employment by Santa Ana Unified School District violated a state law, officials revealed at a meeting late Tuesday. After an inquiry by district Supt. Al Mijares, the Orange County Department of Education declared that Patricia Balen's employment was illegal under state conflict-of-interest codes. On Aug.

As he prepared to settle a bet Wednesday afternoon, Duncan Murdoch, director of admissions at USC, wasn't sure which was going to be harder to pull off: executing a one-and-a-half dive off a high tower or squeezing into a Speedo bathing trunk at age 56. Murdoch got himself in this little mess last fall when he challenged his staff to boost the enrollment of the university's first-year students to more than 2,800 and also to increase the academic level of those incoming students.

As Morningside Elementary School prepares to say goodbye to a popular principal Friday, officials at the LEARN campus say they are still not close to choosing her successor. Victoria Montez is leaving Morningside, where she's been principal since 1991, to take a job with the Los Angeles Unified School District's School Utilization Office. Montez, an educator for 25 years, will help administer year-round schooling programs and the recently mandated statewide transition to 20-student classrooms.

As if one layer of clothing weren't enough under Wednesday's scorching sun, Cal State Northridge President Blenda Wilson added a bright red apron to her ensemble. Under tents and shade trees on Oviatt Lawn, a rock band played and faculty and staff dished up hot dogs, veggie burgers, beans and cookies as Wilson greeted students at a "welcome picnic" to start the school year.

Troy Scott Hunt, a 10-year teaching and administrative veteran of the Downey Unified School District, is the new principal at Luther Elementary School. The board of the Cypress School District, which governs Luther, chose Hunt from a field of 60 applicants for the job, district Supt. William D. Eller said. Hunt, 34, has taught at the elementary-school level and been a middle-school vice principal in Downey Unified.

Ronald A. Lipari, most recently an assistant principal at John Burroughs High School, is the new principal at Burbank High School, district officials said. Lipari, a longtime Burbank resident, was assistant principal for guidance and instruction at Burroughs High since 1991. Before that, beginning in 1987, he was an assistant principal at John Muir Middle School in Burbank.

Even as school trustees met Thursday night to try to find a new superintendent, another top director of the beleaguered Laguna Beach Unified School District quit, the third loss in the district's tiny management team this week. The resignation of Special Services Director Nancy Hubbell is another blow for this district, which now has a management staff consisting of one administrator, four principals and two assistant principals. Hubbell, 46, said her departure has nothing to do with Supt.

David Verdugo has been appointed principal of Valencia High School. Verdugo will take over in place of George Allen, who recently retired after an 18-year career with the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District. Verdugo, appointed by the district's Board of Education, has served for the last six years as principal of El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera.